(1) Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a system for proactively secure computation and, more particularly, to a system for proactively secure general multiparty computation.
(2) Description of Related Art
Secure multi-party computation (MPC) enables parties to jointly compute a function over their inputs, while at the same time keeping these inputs private. The purpose of a proactively secure MPC is to allow for the secure execution of a computation by multiple parties (i.e., greater than two) while maintaining functionality and security even in the face of significant successful corruption of parties participating in the computation.
Previous work on proactively secure MPC was performed by Ostrovsky and Yung (see the List of Incorporated Cited Literature References, Literature Reference No. 1). While their work instantiated the idea of proactive security, their protocol has not been reexamined since 1991, and many innovations have since occurred in the realm of proactive security. Furthermore, the work of Ostrovsky and Yung did not consider the explicit specification of security of their scheme. In particular, the number of parties that can be corrupted at any one time is unspecified. In addition, Ostrovsky and Yung rely on write-only memory that an adversary can write viruses to. For instance, a party that scans the data later might become corrupted upon scanning.
Thus, a continuing need exists for a proactively secure MPC with a specified protocol that examines the number of parties that can be corrupted at any particular round of communication of the protocol. Further, a need exists for a proactively secure MPC protocol that is not susceptible to an adversary storing a virus in local memory that can recorrupt a party when it is briefly scanned.